Activists Warn Rumored Sale To Turn LA Times Into ‘Another Fox News’

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Protesters were set to gather Monday in downtown Los Angeles to urge the owners of the Los Angeles Times not to sell the newspaper to “political propagandists”.

Members of the self-described “progressive” Courage Campaign along with MoveOn.org and Daily Kos launched an online petition demanding the Tribune Company, publishers of the L.A. Times, to reconsider a rumored sale to billionaire businessmen David and Charles Koch.

Protesters were expected to deliver some 100,000 Californian signatures calling on Tribune Company President Peter Liguori “to refuse to sell the paper to political propagandists” to the company’s headquarters near City Hall Park before 2:00 p.m.

An L.A. Times advertisement sponsored by the Courage Campaign alleges the Koch brothers are “climate change deniers, Tea Party funders and election buyers” that will transform the venerable paper into “another Fox News.”

While the Koch brothers have refused to comment on speculation of any possible sale, other big-name potential suitors reportedly include News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and billionaire Eli Broad, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In addition to the Times, the Tribune owns the Chicago Tribune, other newspapers and several radio and TV stations. The company sought bankruptcy protection in 2008 after a leveraged buyout that was engineered by billionaire Sam Zell, and which an examiner said likely included fraud, according to the Associated Press.